(Any 2 of these put you at a higher risk of developing Type II Diabetes.)

Today I am going to discuss how to raise your HDL (high density lipids) otherwise known as your ‘good’ cholesterol.

Your HDL has earned the title of ‘good cholesterol’ because of its ability to protect you against your LDL (low density lipids) or ‘bad’ cholesterol.

Lipids are fats in your blood.

The ‘high/good density fats’ (HDL) work by cleaning up left over ‘low/bad density fats’ (LDL) and sending them back to the liver to be eliminated. Naturally if there is too much ‘bad fat’ and not enough ‘good fat’ the ‘bad fats’ can end up causing problems.

More and more is being understood about cholesterol. It is now known that just lowering total cholesterol is not the answer. What you really need to do is lower the LDL and raise the HDL. Actually research is showing that the higher your HDL, the lower your LDL.

This is not official but one cardiologist told me you do not want your LDL to be more than 2 ½ times your HDL. Ideal HDL is around 60. If your HDL is 60 your LDL should be no more than 150.

What is too low for HDL?

Anything 40 or below for men can be an indicator of higher risk for heart disease and diabetes. For women anything below 50 is a factor.

How do you go about raising your HDL?

Lose weight – research shows that for every 6 pounds you lose you can increase your HDL by at least 1 point – of course this is if you need to lose weight

Be active with regular exercise – simple activities that raise your heart rate (walking, running, swimming, climbing stairs, etc.) can boost your HDL 5% or more in just 30 days

Let’s spend a little time talking about processed foods and fats.

Keep in mind that small amounts of saturated and even trans fats occur naturally in meat and dairy products. The main problem is with the saturated or trans fats that are in processed and packaged foods.

Vegetable oils are used to add flavor, texture and shelf life to most processed/packaged foods. When processed through your digestive tract they turn to sludge thus causing blockages and other health problems.

An important term to watch for is ‘partially hydrogenated.’ Any oil or fat that is ‘partially hydrogenated’ is a ‘trans fat’ that is like putting little plastic corks in your arteries.

It is very important for you to become a ‘label reader’ if you routinely eat processed/packaged foods. Often food manufacturers replace fats with sugars so they can put ‘trans-fat-free’ or ‘low-trans-fat’ on the label.

Here are some processed/packaged foods to limit or do away with completely:

Fried foods such as donuts, French fries, chicken nuggets and hard taco shells

Snack foods such as chips, candy and packaged or microwave popcorn

Frozen dinners

Basically prepare any of the above mentioned foods as often as you can from scratch so you know what is in them and how they are cooked.

It is very easy to take in ‘trans fats’ without thinking about it. For example; you have a bowl of dry cereal for breakfast, have a slice of birthday cake mid afternoon and some microwave popcorn as a bedtime snack. People eat similar to this or worse more often than they realize.

So the bottom line in raising your HDL cholesterol

lose weight if you need to

get regular exercise

eat whole foods

stay away from processed/packaged foods

supplement to get important nutrients in ample quality and quantity

What is your HDL?

My last blood work shows I have an HDL of 89, well above the optimal 60.

Hopefully you are on your way to lowering your risk factors of Metabolic Syndrome and Type II Diabetes? If not, why not? If you have been following this series you now have information you need to do so.

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Important supplements I take and that will help you on your journey of raising your HDL are:

The best way to start using the NeoLife supplements to give you that extra boost is to join the NeoLife Club. Choose the program that will best suit your needs and enjoy my low wholesale cost. (You can cancel or change your order at any time.)

Pat Unlocks the Key to Your Future Health with Wisdom, Knowledge and Common Sense

Pat has been married to the same man for 52 years, is the mother of 3 adult children, and grandma to 8 grandchildren. Growing up in the country gave her a head start to living a healthy lifestyle. This grandma became interested in nutrition as a mother and for the past 27 plus years she has specialized in teaching others the importance of good nutrition. Challenges along the road have been many; her father overcoming congestive heart failure with nutrition, her husband's battle with GERD and dealing with major heart issues, her daughter's battle with a brain tumor, her grandson beating Hodgkin's Lymphoma, her mother's stage 4 lung cancer, her mom-n-law's dementia, and others. Her goal is to empower the future health of others with wisdom, knowledge and common sense so they can have the BEST REAL HEALTH possible.

Great tips for raising our HDL levels. We must always be aware of our lifestyles and the choices we are making for our bodies. Negelting ourselves leads to illness and then our inability to be our best selves for others. We are created to be of service to others and that beings with taking care of ourselves.

I’ve just been communicating with someone who’s father seemed to be healthy until about age 58. Then it seemed all kinds of health problems started showing up. Now, a few years later he is in and out of the hospital with major stuff rather than being able to enjoy life and spend time with his grandchildren. It is sad.

It is always more difficult to reverse damage to our health but it can be done with proper lifestyle changes including nutrition and exercise.

I, too, hope many will pay attention to information available to them about the lifestyle changes they may need to make. Those changes take effort and commitment but don’t all decisions that make a difference take effort and commitment?

Pat, I love how you explain medical mysteries. Recently was told by Dr that I had metabolc syndrome & try as I might, I couldn't really understand it. Reading your blogs has definitely gotten thru. Happy to say I've made many changes under Dr supervision & I am losing weight slowly & getting accustomed to the choices I now make.

So sorry you have been diagnosed with metabolic syndrome but so happy you know about it and are doing something about it. I’m glad I was able to help you understand it more clearly. Please do not hesitate if I can answer any questions that may come up that you need more info about. Lifestyle changes are sometimes difficult at first but my experience has been that once I have made the changes for 2 or 3 months they become the normal. You will find those choices will become easier.

Take care of yourself and you will accomplish reversing that metabolic syndrome.

Thank you for writing this, Pat. You wrote an article that all could understand, about a very important subject. Sometimes, our doctors explain this using the medical jargon that we don't speak. This is a must read for anyone who wants to improve their health.

Thank you very much for your nice compliment. I believe it is very important to understand how to take care of ourself to reduce the risk of developing serious disease. For so many people, they suddenly find they have diabetes and just fall into the mercy of the medical profession who have really not been educated in nutrition. Their continuing ed is the pharmicutical sales reps who are pushing their latest drugs. People need to know their options.

As you know, I am so sorry you had to go through having and recovering from a stroke to realize the importance of taking care of your health. Thankfully you are on your journey to being the very best you can be including being healthier.

Some of the links on this site may not be working currently, we are working to correct the problem. Please contact Pat on the contact page if you need more information about NeoLife or any product mentioned.